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SOUTH AFRICA
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GETTING THERE & AROUND
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic both
fly nonstop daily from Heathrow to
Johannesburg. ba.com
virginatlantic.com
Average flight time: 11h.
Johannesburg’s OR Tambo
International Airport has numerous
car hire outlets, including Avis,
Bluu, Thrifty and Budget.
avis.co.uk bluucarrental.com
thrifty.co.uk budget.co.ukWHEN TO GO
Kruger is a year-round destination,
but the dry South African winter (June
and July) is generally seen as offering
better game-viewing, particularly
around water holes, whereas the rainier
summer months (peaking in December
and January) produce longer grass.
Temperatures can reach the high 2 0s at
any time of year, but take a fleece or two
with you for cooler days and evenings.WHERE TO STAY
Tanda Tula. From R12,600 (£650) per
person per night. tandatula.com
Return Africa Pafuri Tented Camp. From
R6,75 0 (£345) per person per night.
returnafrica.com/pafuri-tented-camp
Marataba Conservation Explorer
Camp. From R23,585 (£1,210) per night,
for up to four people sharing the camp.
maratabacamps.co.za
All three properties are part of Classic
Portfolio. classic-portfolio.comMORE INFO
Rough Guide to Game Parks of South
Africa, RRP: £ 17 .99.HOW TO DO IT
The Luxury Safari Co offers a nine-
night trip to South Africa, including
return flights from the UK, car hire
and three nights at the Classic
Portfolio properties of Tanda Tula,
the Return Africa Pafuri Tented Camp,
and the Marataba Conservation
Camps, from £7,0 00 per person.
theluxurysafaricompany.comshaggy of mane and regal of bearing, rending
the night in two with a roar. As a breeding
ground for rhinos, meanwhile, Marataba has
become a crucial tool against extinction.
Profi ts from guests are channelled almost
exclusively back into its conservation schemes,
so tourist money makes a quantifi able
diff erence. And for visitors, the appeal of a stay
at one of the two camps here is far more than
simply the animal encounters (on one drive
we see nine southern white rhinos, including a
deliriously adorable calf, but no other vehicles)
and the comforts of the hospitality (the
fi reside food at my accommodation, Explorers
Camp, is garden-picked and staggeringly
good). It’s also the opportunity to get hands-on
— literally, in the case of the rhino-collaring.
Since mid-2020, conservation has been
moved to the fore of the visitor experience,
partly as a result of a growth in demand. In
the company of young Marataba guides Max
Tindall and Lindsay Whitton, my three days
here are spent not just watching wildlife
— buff alos here, bat-eared foxes there, bee-
eaters overhead — but tracking key species,
logging data on rare sightings and setting
camera traps. A quick aside: when you’re
retrieving a camera on foot and a leopard fl ows
out of the camelthorn tree in front of you,
pausing for a heartbeat to stare, it’s not
a moment that’s easily forgotten.
“Life attracts life,” Lindsay tells me,
referring to the organic way in which
Marataba has become largely self-sustaining,
an ecosystem with a million moving parts.
But it’s the rhinos, those exquisite, gentle
souls in the bodies of battering rams, that
leave the biggest impact. Between 30 and 40
were reintroduced here between 2000 and
2004, and the subsequent population has
increased tenfold. The aim is that they might
all eventually be collared, and therefore, that
much safer. Even watching them graze, as
butterfl ies fl utter around their horns, melts
the heart a little.
In 20 16, on a reserve elsewhere in South
Africa, a young male rhino survived a brutal
poaching attack — just. His face was left as
jelly. He was named Seha by his rescuers,
short for Sehawukele, which means “have
mercy on us” in Zulu. Thirty operations
later, he still lacks his horns, but he has a
future. Now something of a poster-child for
the conservation movement, he’s been living
wild at Marataba since early 2022. I don’t set
eyes on him — he’s doing exactly what rhinos
should do, namely wandering where the mood
takes him — but his story is powerful.
The same adjective, of course, applies
to so much about the region. As I leave,
I’m reminded of something Scotch said
back at Tanda Tula. “Everything out here
is interconnected,” he had explained.
“The animals, the plants, even the people.
Everything.” And that, surely, is what makes
it all so priceless.Travellers sitting around a boma
(campfire) in Tanda Tula Field Camp